New Orleans emcee Mia X is from the old school and has been making hip-hop for twenty plus years. She is probably best known by most rap fans for the period she was signed to and associated with Master P's No Limit label, but her rich rap history goes back long before that. However, searching under the artist's early rap years online will inevitably yield inaccurate results -- whether searching on the AOL.music, All Music Guide, Yahoo, VH1 websites, or on "her" Wikipedia bio which erroneously states: "Although born in New Orleans, Mia began her rapping career in Queens, New York as part of New York Incorporated, which disbanded after only four years. She then returned to New Orleans and met with Master P, an aspiring rapper and producer who signed her to his record label, No Limit."

"That's not correct and I am tired of people telling me that I used to live in New York and started my career there," Mia X said by phone recently, noting that she never lived in New York -- always in New Orleans. So how did this misinformation get out there in the first place? "I think it was someone at VH1 who first got it wrong in a story about me," Mia X said. It turns out it was John Bush -- a writer for All Music Guide -- who got it wrong, but then all the other websites listed above (Yahoo, AOL, VH1), plus many others, including whoever entered the artist's Wikipedia information, copied the erroneous bio. The original mistake came about apparently based on the fact that one of the members (Denny D) of New York Inc. was from New York, but he lived in New Orleans before returning to New York, according to Mia X. So, for the record, here is the updated, accurate bio on Mia X c/o the AMOEBLOG:

With such aliases as "the Black Widow" and "Ghetto She Devil," Mia X is the pioneering Dirty South female hip-hop artist who has been putting it down since day one. "She's the Queen of the South and she can out-rap most male rappers," observed fellow New Orleans artist Fiend, of his homegirl, who began making hip-hop history many years before she blazed onto hip-hop's radar as the First Lady of No Limit Records during its peak years with such landmark albums as Mama Drama, Good Girl Gone Bad, and Unlady Like, plus her countless contributions to projects such as the soundtracks for I Got The Hook Up, I'm Bout It, and Foolish.

Born Mia Young in 1971 in New Orleans, she was drawn to hip-hop early on. At age thirteen, the always self-motivated Mia X started her career as a member of the city's first hip-hop crew, New York Incorporated, along with Denny D, DJ Wop, and (future star) Mannie Fresh. "It was 1984 and we used to used to rent a ballroom out in the Superdome every Saturday and we threw dances there," recalled Mia X of the years 1984-1987 as a member the group which got the "New York" in its name because founding member Denny D hailed from Hollis, Queens. As the group's sole female member, Mia X confidently held her own. "I was always around a lot of guys. Everything they did, I did too. I wrote my own rhymes. I would scratch and mix records. That was the thing then...to do the famous scratch from 'Roxanne Roxanne.' Mannie Fresh taught me how to do that routine," she laughed. Not surprisingly, her early influences included Roxanne Shante and Sparky D, as well as such vocalists as Etta James and Nina Simone.
In 1987, after Denny D returned to New York, the group disbanded. "It was time for us to focus on graduating high-school," recalled Mia, who put rap on the back burner for several years after she became a mother. When she first met Master P in the early nineties, No Limit had yet to make its mark. "He was looking for me. I had never heard of him. He heard of me because I had sold 77,000 records independently," she said in reference to her 1992 solo hit The Payback on Lamina Records. But it was her tenure at No Limit that helped transform Mia X into a major national star, recording alongside the likes of Snoop Dogg, Fat Joe, Foxy Brown, and Mystikal. "Before No Limit I was only known in the South, but Master P helped changed all that," recalled the prolific artist. Among her favorites of her own songs, she chooses "Here Comes The Drama" as a personal best. "When Tre and I heard the track we thought we heard drama on the track so we did it that way." She also names "The Party Don't Stop" (featuring Foxy Brown & Master P) as a favorite. "My aunt dated a guy from the group Newcleus and "Jam On It" was one of my favorite favorite songs," she says. "And I always wanted to use the 'Wikki Wikki' beat...I wanted to introduce it to a younger crowd who didn't know it...And that beat is timeless."

The artist is currently working on several new projects. For up to the minute info on her, visit the Mia X MySpace page.